'RUN FROM BORDER'
Americans told not to enter Mexico
Texas authorities are warning Americans, especially those planning spring-break trips, to avoid Mexico after the recent uptick in violence that left two dead.
“Drug-cartel violence and other criminal activity represent a significant safety threat to anyone who crosses into Mexico right now,” said Steven McCraw, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Lt. Chris Olivarez of the DPS told Fox Saturday that the department was gearing up for springbreakers who might be seeking to cross the border.
“Right now it is too dangerous with the increase in violence and kidnappings that are taking place in Mexico,” Olivarez said.
The State Department has also issued a Level 4 travel advisory — its most severe — to avoid four Mexican states.
In the latest incident, two sisters from Texas and a friend who crossed into Mexico last month to sell clothes at a flea market have not been heard from in about two weeks, authorities said Friday.
The FBI said it was aware Maritza Trinidad Perez Rios, 47, Marina Perez Rios, 48, and their friend, Dora Alicia Cervantes Saenz, 53, had gone missing.
The women were said to be traveling in a green mid-1990s Chevy Silverado to a flea market in the city of Montemorelos, about a three-hour drive from the border.
News of their disappearance came a week after four South Carolina residents were kidnapped in broad daylight in Matamoros on March 3. They had traveled to Mexico so one of them, Latavia “Tay” McGee, 35, could get a tummy tuck.
McGee and Eric James Williams, 38, were found four days after they were grabbed off the street, injured but alive in a shack east of Matamoros. They were taken to a medical center in Brownsville, Texas.
Their two friends, Shaeed Woodard, 33, and Zindell Brown, in his mid-20s, had been shot dead.
Six people have been arrested in connection with the kidnapping and murders.
The Scorpion group of the region’s cartel turned over those it said were responsible along with an apologetic note that said the accused kidnappers “acted under their own decision-making” when they ambushed the victims.